Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell is again taking the Trump administration to court.
Campbell and 21 other AGs are suing the Trump administration, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the National Institutes of Health over the funding cuts for universities and research institutions.
The AGs are challenging the Trump administration’s attempt to cut “indirect cost” reimbursements at every research institution throughout the country. These reimbursements cover expenses to facilitate biomedical research, like lab, faculty, infrastructure and utility costs.
“Massachusetts is home to universities and research institutions that lead our country in saving lives and creating jobs,” Campbell posted on social media Monday.
“Trump’s NIH cuts put them at risk,” the AG wrote. “We won’t allow this Administration to play politics with our public health or undermine our economy. We’re suing.”
The NIH on Friday announced that it would slash indirect cost rates to 15% of grants. This would lead to major budget gaps for universities and research institutions, and likely trigger the suspension of clinical trials, layoffs, and lab closures, according to the AGs.
“Last year, $9B of the $35B that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) granted for research was used for administrative overhead, what is known as ‘indirect costs,’ ” the NIH posted on Friday. “Today, NIH lowered the maximum indirect cost rate research institutions can charge the government to 15%, above what many major foundations allow and much lower than the 60%+ that some institutions charge the government today. This change will save more than $4B a year effective immediately.”
Harvard’s previous NIH indirect rate was 69%.
The AG coalition’s lawsuit was filed on Monday in Massachusetts U.S. District Court.
This suit is being co-led by Campbell and the AGs of Illinois and Michigan. The other AGs joining this coalition are from: Arizona, California, Connecticut, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.
The AGs wrote in the lawsuit that they’re suing to “protect their states and residents from unlawful action by the National Institutes of Health that will devastate critical public health research at universities and research institutions in the United States.”
“Without relief from NIH’s action, these institutions’ cutting-edge work to cure and treat human disease will grind to a halt,” the lawsuit states.
The coalition argues that tossing the indirect cost agreements violates the Administrative Procedure Act — including a directive Congress passed during Trump’s first term to fend off his earlier proposal to drastically cut research reimbursements.
That statutory language, still in effect, bans the NIH from requiring categorial and indiscriminate changes to indirect cost reimbursements, according to the suit. The coalition is seeking a court order barring the Trump administration and NIH from implementing the action.
In Fiscal Year 2024, 219 organizations in Massachusetts received about $3.46 billion in NIH funding to support 5,783 research projects.
UMass Amherst, for instance, received about $44.8 million dollars in funding from NIH. Of that total amount, about $13.1 million dollars are for indirect costs, based on the NIH federal indirect cost rate of 61%.
“An example of an NIH-funded project at UMass Amherst is ‘Massachusetts AI and Technology Center for Connected Care in Aging and Alzheimer’s Disease (MAITC),’ supported by the National Institute on Aging,” the lawsuit reads.
“The project is a collaboration of UMass Amherst and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, also involving Brandeis University, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Northeastern University,” the lawsuit states. “MAITC fosters interdisciplinary research on the development, validation, and translation of AI-enhanced technologies to improve connections between older adults, caregivers, and clinicians in order to more effectively support the care of people living with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias.”